National Arboreta and University Partnership to Study
Climate Adaptation and Hybridization in Poplars
PopUp Poplars is a National Science Foundation-funded collaboration led by Virginia Tech, Pennsylvania State University, University of Vermont, University of Maryland, and a network of eighteen universities and arboreta across the United States
The objective of this research is to characterize adaptive variation across replicated natural hybrid zones between Populus trichocarpa and Populus balsamifera. This research will explore the important role hybridization plays in adaptation to climate, and predict adaptation to changing climatic conditions by leveraging an understanding of the interaction between genomic ancestry, genomic variation, and environmental variation in producing phenotypic traits important to forest tree fitness. |